Part 34 (2/2)

”You're going to be married?” I repeated.

”Yes,” she nodded. ”After all these years! Once,” she went on in a triumphant voice, ”our fields of vision were so small that our differences of opinion loomed up like insurmountable barriers. Now the differences are mere specks on our broadened outlooks. Oh, I know,” she went on as if inspired, ”I've been a long journey, simply to come back to Bob again. But it hasn't been in vain. There was no short cut to the perfect understanding that is Bob's and mine today.”

”And when,” timidly I inquired, ”do you intend to be married, Ruth?”

My sister's expression clouded. She smiled, and shook her head. ”I don't know,” she said, ”I wish I did. Years are so precious when one is concealing a little nest of gray hairs behind one's left ear. Bob and I have got to wait. You see Bob wasn't planning for this. He had some idea a career would always satisfy me. He hasn't been saving. He has put about all he has been able to earn into fighting for clean politics. I myself haven't been able to lay by but a paltry thousand. Madge comes home in May. I shall then probably have to look up another job for myself somewhere or other, while Bob's establis.h.i.+ng himself and making ready for me out there.”

Will cleared his throat and coughed. He had simply stared until now. ”I suppose,” he said, as if in an attempt to lighten the conversation with a little light humor, ”I suppose a legacy of some sort wouldn't prove unwelcome to you and Bob just about now.”

It must have struck Ruth as a stereotyped attempt at fun. But she smiled and replied in the same vein, ”I think we'd know how to make use of a portion of it.” Then she rose. The door bell had rung sharply twice.

”There he is,” she explained. ”There's Bob now. I'll let him in.”

She went out into the hall and pressed the b.u.t.ton that released the lock of the door three floors below.

I knew how fleeting every minute of last hours before train-time can be.

I motioned to Will, and when Ruth came back to us I said, ”We'll just run down the back way, Ruth.”

She flashed me an appreciative glance. ”You don't need to,” she deprecated.

”Still, we will,” I a.s.sured her, and then I went over and kissed my radiant sister.

Her face was illumined as it used to be years ago when Robert Jennings was on his way to her. The same old tenderness gleamed in her larger-visioned eyes.

”When he comes read this together,” I said, and I slipped the envelope, with the clipping inside it, into her hands.

Then Will and I went out through the kitchen, and down the back stairs.

THE END

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